1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing system which makes a reference to a knowledge base in accordance with input information so as to complete or resolving ambiguity of the input information and a method therefor, and more particularly to an information processing system which makes a reference to a knowledge base to output information of a required type.
2. Related Background Art
Hitherto, there have been developed systems of a type which infers a requirement indicated by information in accordance with the information supplied. In the case where an input in a natural language to the conventional system is performed, a CA (Conceptual Analyzer), which analyzes the input so as to output its concept, or a syntactic-analyzing parser cannot resolve the ambiguity of the input. Thus, the conventional system cannot sometimes analyze the uniqueness of the input. Accordingly, there arises a necessity that the fuzziness of the input to validate the concept prior to performing the process for executing the command inputted to the command interface.
With an interface of a type for receiving an input which is not written in a natural language, for example, a menu-selectable interface, a process for completing the input to validate the concept is required prior to performing a next step if a partial input is performed.
Hitherto, dictionaries have been available each of which is formed into a CD-ROM or the like which contains the digitized contents of a dictionary in the form of a book. The dictionary of the foregoing type enables a user to detect the meaning of a desired word. Moreover, digitized dictionaries of another type exist in which words in two languages are written, such as an English-Japanese dictionary and a Japanese-English dictionary. The foregoing dictionaries are intended to be used mainly by a human being.
There has been available a system of a type for supplying, to a predetermined system, information in a specific form which can be processed by a machine. For example, a natural language parser based on a syntax requires a part of speech of a word in a domain of the language which is the subject to be parsed. A machine translation system contains a dictionary in two languages for mapping from one language to another language.
However, the conventional systems have been designed for a specific purpose and, thus, the dictionary for a human being cannot be used by the system. For example, a dictionary for analyzing a natural language cannot be used to generate the natural language or the opposite cannot be performed due to the difference in the contents.
Accordingly, a plurality of independent dictionaries must be developed and controlled to unify a plurality of sub-systems.
Information (information, such as concept of a word) required for a computer system to perform a natural language process is not contained in a dictionary for a human being. Thus, a user cannot search for a word by using the meaning of the word.